The pastor who invited the President up for prayer during an unscheduled visit is now publicly disavowing having done so.

Pastor David Platt of McLean Bible Church in Vienna said he made the decision in haste and he did not intend his prayer to be an endorsement of Mr. Trump or any political stance.

“Sometimes we find ourselves in situations that we didn’t see coming, and we’re faced with a decision in a moment when we don’t have the liberty of deliberation, so we do our best to glorify God,” Mr. Platt said in a statement to church members. “I found myself in one of those situations.”

Referring to the biblical passage of 1 Timothy 2:1-6, the pastor said, “My aim was in no way to endorse the president, his policies, or his party, but to obey God’s command to pray for our president and other leaders to govern in the way this passage portrays.”

“I know that some within our church, for a variety of valid reasons, are hurt that I made this decision,” the pastor said. “This weighs heavy on my heart. I love every member of this church, and I only want to lead us with God’s Word in a way that transcends political party and position, heals the hurts of racial division and injustice, and honors every man and woman made in the image of God.”

…White House spokesman Judd Deere said Sunday that the president stopped at the church to pray for the victims of the mass shooting in Virginia Beach, Virginia, and for the community. The president’s motorcade arrived at the church unexpectedly while Mr. Trump was returning to the White House from a golf outing at Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Virginia.
Source: WashingtonTimes

Here’s what happened in the ‘offensive’ visit:

The president stood on stage while the pastor prayed for him, on a day that evangelist Franklin Graham had announced as a “Special Day of Prayer for the President.” Pastor Platt did not specifically refer to the Virginia Beach shooting, and Mr. Trump, with head bowed and folded hands holding his golf cap, didn’t say anything on the stage.

Afterward, the pastor said, “the president walked off stage without comment, and we closed our gathering by celebrating heroes among us, a couple who has spent the last 48 years spreading the gospel in remote places where it had never gone before they came. We then recited the Great Commission as we always do, sending one another out into the city for the glory of our King.”
Source: WashingtonTimes

But praying for the President ‘In person’ was somehow upsetting to his congregation, and he apologized for it.

Why is praying for the President in absentia good, but praying for him in person somehow ‘bad’? Now that he’s getting pushback, he’s walking back the prayer. Have we all become so damned secularized that we’re afraid to pray for those who lead over us?

Would he have apologized for praying had it been Obama that showed up on his doorstep during his term in office?

Who’s REALLY guilty of ‘politicizing’ this prayer? Trump? Or the neverTrumpers with their knickers in a twist about him visiting their church?

It would cost the pastor nothing to say that — as someone who believes in 1 Timothy 2:2 — he believes in praying for whosoever is running our country, state, and community. Not because of any political affiliation, but because doing so has been commanded by God.

But no… he’s letting the SJW’s set the tone, and politicize prayer.

Won’t the secular left be pleased with his lockstep obedience to their agenda? I must have overlooked the verse about “Obeying God unless it upsets the influential families in your congregation”.

And let’s (for a moment) suppose Trump actually was every bit as evil as his critics would claim… didn’t Jesus have something to say about even that?

Things like:
…”I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.”

Or:
… “The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.”

Or even:
… “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in.

So, are we to believe that if Jesus were running the service at that church, the Son Of God would have turned Trump away? Have you any examples of him doing that you could produce from Scripture?

Or maybe this pastor is reading a different Bible than the rest of us. Or maybe he’s forgotten about what it means to live for an ‘Audience of One’.

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